smile
Hutch is gentle, and he wears it on his sleeve, she thinks. Itās a lot like her own armour, but where hers is sharp, made to keep the world out, his coats him like a second skin, and she doesnāt understand how it protects him.
( She isnāt sure that it does. )
Hutch is kind, in a way the rest of the world isnāt. She sees it in the way he looks at other people, in the way heāll help a stranger without batting an eye. She knows that kindness is so often forged from pain.
( Does it hurt, still? I carry mine in my fists, in my heart, in the set of my jaw. Where is yours? Does it hang off your shoulders, or is it knocking down your ribs, one by one? Do you carry it in your heart, too?Ā )
Itās taken her years to not assume the worst of people, and itās a lesson sheās still learning ā but Hutch makes it easier, and for that, she loves him.
So when he smiles at her, she smiles back. And maybe it frightens her a little, the way it makes her forget about her armour ā the way she finds herself believing so fully that Hutch is gentle, is kind, is trustworthy.
The way smiling gets easier too, each time.
